WayForward's interpretation of the classic films will thrill fans of Metroid, Aliens, and cool action games in general.

I have a few complaints about Aliens: Infestation, Sega's new portable-version-of-Colonial-Marines-but-not-really action shooter for DS. They're pretty trivial complaints, though. Usually, criticisms in a review are meant as caveats: Things to consider before committing to buy a game. Not this time, though. Infestation is a game that any fan of Metroid, Aliens, or classic action games in general should grab. It's a wonderful verse in the DS's swan song. I have no hesitation in recommending it.

No, my complaints are more nit-picky. They're the sort of things I wish I could have brought up during development, because they concern fine details that would turn a great Aliens game into a perfect one. Little elements of pacing, atmosphere, interpreting the source material -- that kind of thing.

By and large, I'm smitten with Infestation. It's a great-looking game in the classic 16-bit style (play it on a DSi XL for best effect) crafted by the modern masters of sprite animation, WayForward. It's designed very much in the vein of the Metroid games -- the director is an admitted Metroid fan, and it shows in the best way possible -- only here Samus Aran has been replaced by a team of space marines who venture out individually to solve a mystery and blow things up. Like Metroid, progress is gated by environmental obstructions. These can occasionally be mundane (key cards) or even trite (finding a way to move a crate so you can collect a wrench so you can turn a valve so that you can bypass geysers of steam). At their best, though, they're organic extensions of the player's abilities, the most appropriate to the setting being the flamethrower that torches enemies and clears away resinous secretions obstructing certain doors.

This is all perfectly fitting, of course. Infestation is based around Fox's Alien franchise, particularly the first two films. In 1979, Alien defined sci-fi as space horror. Several years later, Aliens codified the concept of space marines. Both were a tremendous inspiration for the Metroid games, and Metroid in turn helped inspire WayForward's best works, such as Shantae. In short, it's a game that brings an awful lot of chickens home to roost at once. Appropriately enough, it's crammed with fan service: You're forced to cut open doors that have been welded shut in a panic, drive an APC across a field filled with marauding creatures, wade through the egg-filled cabin of the downed "space jockey" derelict, and more. The music and backgrounds drench the game with a tense atmosphere. Shadowy bits of scenery suddenly spring to life and resolve themselves as aliens. Marines die permanently, leaving their console icon a black square with a "NO SIGNAL" warning upon their demise... but sometimes, defeated soldiers are captured instead and can be rescued, provided you can find the nest where they've been cocooned by their alien captors. You constantly see little touches like an inert power loader, and you feel a thrill: Not only do you recognize those movie callbacks, you know that at some point you're going to get to use them yourself.

Infestation is hardly the first Alien game to come along over the past three decades, but for my money it's easily the best to date -- at least, the best that doesn't cross over with the Predator films. While a lot of the game's most fannish touches have admittedly been devalued by oversaturation in lesser games and other media, they still work here. Most Alien-based games go the simple action route of having players mow down legions of xenomorphs; while there's plenty of that here as well, WayForward has elected to ratchet up the tension instead. Your marines can run, but you'll find yourself inching forward at a slow crawl much of the time, which is pretty unusual for a side-scroller. The game also takes a cue from Capcom's arcade brawler Alien Vs. Predator, not in terms of play mechanics but rather in the way it breaks up the monotony of killing a host of identical creatures by throwing conniving human opponents into the mix at times.

Click the image above to check out all Aliens: Infestation screens.

With so much going for it, Infestation's failings can be frustrating. Again, they're minor issues, but they drag the game down from the heights to which it aspires. The aliens themselves are sometimes handled clumsily. It's cool when they suddenly leap out a bunk or a shadowy alcove, but often they simply pop out of the floor, and it looks ridiculous. They also respawn in the exact same locations every time you pass through an area, which kills the tension given the amount of backtracking you do -- a little randomization would have gone a long way. The frequency with which enemies respawn is often annoying, too. Some reappear when you zone out from a section of the map, but some pop back in as soon as you walk into the next room. Others, especially the patrol robots, somehow materialize as soon as you scroll their remains off the screen. In a game where you're constantly roaming back and forth through the same areas, this quickly grows tiring.

Really, the aliens -- deadly as they are -- suffer the most from Infestation's old-school design. They're simple, predictable creatures who are generally content to lurk at a predetermined spawn point and attack marines who come too close. It would have been far more interesting if the aliens could roam freely and unpredictably through the levels, if evasion had been a mechanic. The horror created by the films always came in the sense of dread the aliens exuded: They were smart, aggressive, and always on the move. Here, you can find recruitable marines casually hanging out in rooms full of aliens, waiting for you to show up. The greatest shortcoming in WayForward's decision to go with a classic game design for Infestation is that it reduces these otherworldly terrors to typical video game mobs and bosses (though admittedly the bosses are kind of awesome).

Despite this glaring (though admittedly fanboyish) complaint, Infestation is the single best follow-up to James Cameron's Aliens since Mark Verheiden's black-and-white Dark Horse comics (the original edition that starred an adult Newt and an embittered Hicks, mind you) more than 20 years ago. More than that, it's an excellent game; it calls back to both the films and the games inspired by it, but it manages to define itself as something unique in the process. It's clearly a labor of love... and it's a satisfying way to celebrate the twilight days of a truly great handheld system.

This review cuts off at the end

Fans of Castlevania, Look for Easter Eggs.

When you play this game keep on a look out for various things that resemble animations in the Castlevania games for Nintendo DS. There are some creatures that are same animation as in Castlevania but have a different skin. I am not sure where exactly, but they're there.

What the hell are you talking about?

Perfect Metroid Replacement

Ever since those fools at team ninja defiled and degraded samus into an emo whiny little kid i've come to quickly hate in their metroid other m game,the creators have said they have no intention to return metroid to its side-scrolling 2D roots nor have any plans they wish for a future metroid game.Sucks to be me as soon as i saw the screen pics of other M seeing the cheesy-looking monsters and learned its done by a team that does hack and slash ninja games i knew this was gonna turn out bad.

It's kinda similar to how some dumbass director for the movie Alien 3 decided it be a cool idea to kill off all the people from the second movie in a non-epic and very lame way right as soon as the movie begins,he wanted to be a renegade and stand out from the other directors and as a result since he did not keep to the formula he ended up with the worst alien movie possible,if i could id blow him and his movie out the airlock just like how ripley does near the end of every movie getting rid the alien trash,the third movie should be considred non-canon and forgotten,followed and tied-in with the comics

I was also not fond of the idea of sigourney weaver shaving her head and being a prison bitch...

Alien 1 was about the horror,Alien 2 was about the action and humor,but both movies keep the aspect of learning about the crew members and the marines and seeing how each one had their own personality

Aliens infestation succeeds in keeping the formula,each marine has their own storyline and personality letting you come to both understand and love them,additionally the creator was an aliens fan which allows him to manifest a continued feel of the aliens 2 storyline,in fact alien 3 parts are completly ignored or limited which was a good idea,the director of the game here did not go renegade and kept the story intact with the second movie and the game felt like the second movie but continued in a metroid aspect playstyle,a well thought move since the aliens franchise spawned the idea of metroid,the fact the creator was also a metroid fan and played the games as well as an aliens fan helped this game immensely.

This game however is a staller for the highly anticipated "Aliens Colonial Marines" for pc,ps3,and 360,the game has been delayed so many times they put out a cancelled and upgraded aliens infestation to hold off fans a bit,it be kinda ironic if the handheld turned out better,hopefully it doesnt turn out like duke nukem forever

David Fincher had no creative control over Alien 3

When he signed on to direct the film he was fresh off of doing music videos and because Fox was desperate to get the film done. It was the writers idea to have Newt and Hicks killed off in the beginning and had nothing to do with David Fincher at all. During production he tried using his own creativity and each time he tried, the producers faught with him over it. He had such a tough time with Alien 3 that he left production during post and vowed at that time to never work on another film again. Luckily he did and made good films like Seven,Fight Club,Panic Room and The Social Network just to name a few.

Alien 3 wasn't all that bad at all because it did tell a good story. What was bad was Alien Resurrection because of how redicilous the story was and how much the film changed from the initial script Joss Whedon wrote. Movie was so bad that Joss Whedon distances himself from the film, saying how Fox did bad by giving full creative control to the director of the project.

I don't think Way Forward was ever the "golden child of gaming"

They are good at pumping out solid, yet uninspiring 2D games. So when I played the Blood Rayne demo, I wasn't let down, but I certainly didn't pick that repetitive thing up (can you still pick up digital games?).

I think I want to get Aliens though. Even if the gameplay is meh, the Metroid-like structure ad survival elements sound pretty awesome.

Wayforward: Keepers of the old-school 2-d flame.

These people are masters of their craft, and it makes me smile to know that there are developers out there who still make old-school games. I've had my eye on Wayforward since the phenomenal-yet-ridiculously-rare-and-now-expensive Shantae on Game Boy Color. Between this game and the superb Bloodrayne: Betrayal, there is no doubt Wayforward is at the top of their game. I just wish more games like this existed.

I will without a doubt be getting this when it comes out next Tuesday.

This!

I second this. I haven't picked up the Move yet, but I'm really hoping that they intend to make some of those light-gun arcade shooters available. My local movie theater has an Aliens machine, and everytime I go I spend at least 5 bucks getting killed by Xenomorphs. Also really like how this DS game looks. It will be hard to justify buying this with UC3, Skyrim, CoD, BF3 and Dark Souls devouring my wallet though.

I think SEGA should

one day take the PS1 game Alien Trilogy and put it on the PSN and XBLA. They could give the game a competetive and co op online component which would be cool since the original didn't have that. I used to play that game to death on my PS1 and it would just be awesome if SEGA did that, but with Colonial Marines and the recently announced Aliens game that Creative Assembly is developing I doubt SEGA would go forth with that anytime soon.

DSiXL

I'm having a hard time with reccomendation to play this on the XL considering that A) I don't have an XL and B) I don't have a 3DS, which right now costs that same as an XL. If I had the money to buy an XL I might as well just buy a 3DS so I can get the upgraded hardware.

Comics?

I didn't know Jeremy was a fan of the Aliens comics! I considered checking them out myself; they sound like a better follow-up to the first two movies than the third movie was. I'm almost hoping that I can fit them in with this game in my personal canon, because I'm nerdy like that.

The only flaw that bugged me

Combat with humans and robots is very repetitive. Spent far too much time ducking behind cover and using blind fire when I should have been blasting aliens. None the less I did sit and play the game for 3 hours straight which is something I rarely do with portable games. I absolutely recommend it.

Grenades

When

I first saw this game, I knew it was going to be a good one. I can imagine that respawning thing can get annoying though, like its Mega Man or something. A randomizer would have definitely been the way to go and like Jeremy said, would have fit the license perfectly.

I've always enjoyed Aliens games...

The first one I played was way back on the Apple IIGS. You had an entire party of marines, like this game, but the game was completely in real-time, so you had to jump between your party frantically to keep them all alive. I especially remember the final boss -- the Alien Queen, of course -- which was a first-person fight where you controlled the power loader's arms to smack the Queen out of the airlock.

It's nice to see that quality Aliens games are still being released today.

Stoked. But there's one thing the review doesn't mention

The review says it's a free-roaming metroid-like game, but it doesn't say how linear you progress through the map. Must you go on a pre-deterimined path through each area, as dictated by the skills and keycards you unlock? Or are there some options, like in SotN?

Monster Tale is another excelent late DS game, though it's awesome huge word map is marred by you having to take an exact route though it, moreso than other games like it.

There are a few side areas

that reward you for exploring them like any good game of this ilk should do; many of them obstructed until you find the right tool.

You basically explore a variety of ships and colonies as the current objectives dictates so I find it a bit linear if your just going to gun through the game. Though that would just make it harder on you since finding weapon upgrades and more marines is important.